"Oh." Damascus gazed at the man in a new light, and a small smile spread on his face. "That's very kind. I'm glad that the people here are so generous."
She returned the smile with a small one of her own. "Some of us humans are kinder than others," she said, "but we do try our best."
Sensing a lull in conversation, Runi suddenly decided to butt in with a new topic. "So!" she cheerfully said, wiggling in between Tessa and Damascus. "When was your last time here, Da...?"
She turned and looked between the two.
"Is there a specific name I should be using instead of Damascus?" Runi whispered.
"We were thinking Damian," Tessa replied just as quietly. "It fits the age he's going for, right?"
Damascus frowned at waved his hand, preoccupied with Runi's question. "Yes, Damian is perfectly fine. Um... you humans like to keep track of time." He murmured, mostly to himself. "I've forgotten about that. And, you prefer years, according to the Gregorian calendar... that's- 365 revolutions of the earth around the sun?"
He squinted into the distance, putting all of his mental concentration into some sort of calculations.
"I'm... I'm not sure what the year here currently is," he finally said. "But the year when I last visited was around- 1704? I'm not sure where my location was then, exactly."
Runi gave an impressed whistle from behind her, and Tessa uttered a quiet "wow" underneath her breath at the answer. She had known it had been quite some time since he had been here, but it was one thing to think it and another thing to have a date to further support it.
"The current year is 2018," Tessa finally managed to get out. "And, right now, we're in a small New England town. That's in the United States of America, by the way. Although you probably knew of them as the colonies, if you haven't been around since before the Revolutionary War."
Damascus' eyes widened, and he stopped in his tracks to look between Runi and Tessa. "United States of America? Revolutionary War..? How much have I missed?" He look out a long breath, a chuckle riding at the end of it. "I'd love to learn all about this, but, ah, I'm sure it would be a lengthy explanation."
He paused and ran both hands through his hair, trying to process everything. No wonder nothing looked familiar anymore. He had been gone for three centuries.
A grin started to spread across her face. "To put it simply, we didn't like the British trying to tax our tea. We try asking if we could work things out with the British monarchy, but it didn't work out too well. So viva la revolution, I guess. And then France tried to have a revolution of their own right afterwards, but it didn't go as well - all it ended up with was a bunch of decapitated people and some very bloody guillotines."
Damascus blinked and pulled a slightly unsettled face, though he was more surprised than he was disturbed.
"The colonies started a revolution over... over tea?" He cleared his throat. "And I'm truly sorry about what happened with France. Out of curiosity, how did the revolution here succeed where the revolution in France failed?"
"I think it's because America had less guillotines," Runi helpfully inputted, grinning in amusement at the conversation. Tessa had to admit that catching Damascus up on his world history was fairly entertaining.
"I think it's also because our revolutions were a bit different," Tessa added. "There was a war here before the revolution, and the British fell into debt - so they decided to tax the colonies that had fought for them. We tried to make amends after protesting the taxes - one of them being a tea tax - but it didn't go as well as planned. We ended up fighting against the odds and winning our independence. But, back over in France, the revolution was more about the classes fighting each other, and the leader in charge of the revolution loved cutting people's heads off just a little too much."
"Oh." Damascus mulled this over, squinting into the distance. "And how long ago was this? If we're in The United States of America right now, it doesn't seem to be displaying the signs of a country that has newly won its independence. It's not as unstable, I mean."
"It was actually closer to when you were here last than it would be to now," she said, giving him a smile. "It happened in the late 1700s. We've been independent for a long time."
Damascus brightened a little at this, and gave a nod of encouragement. "Oh, I see. Congratulations!"
They had been approaching a strip of buildings, all of which the signs were colorful and distracting to the eye. He paused and scanned them, wondering if the arcade they were on their way to would look anything like the arcade he was used to.
She nodded, raising a hand up and pointing a building quickly approaching on their side of the street. "That's this town's arcade. It doesn't have too much, but it's marginally less boring than the other places we have here."
Tessa started to nod in response, but Runi had already hurried on ahead of them and pushed the door open. Though she didn't kick it - it seemed like she had been debating doing so from the way she had her foot raised for the briefest of moments - the door still swung open and hit the wall behind it with a loud noise. Tessa winced when she heard it.
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